Disclaimer: Don't own, just play.
The Future Knight
A knock at the door.
Dagonet rose from his meditation over his broadsword and crossed the cell.
A tangle of blonde curls and knobby knees shoved past the heavy wood before he could reach the doorknob, and Dagonet had to steady the boy's shoulders to keep him upright. The smell of dirt and blood filled his nostrils.
He shut the door with a careful click.
"Sit."
The boy limped over to a chair. He kept himself away from the backrest, folded his arms across the table, and dropped his head. Dagonet watched with a critical eye before retrieving healing herbs from a shelf. He kept his voice low. "How many?"
The boy's answer was muffled as he was helped from of his torn tunic. "Four. They weren't from the Wall."
"Were they sober?"
Dagonet prodded a particularly livid spot on his shoulder. The boy winced. "No," he said through clenched teeth. "They crossed me near the whorehouse."
Dagonet nodded. His lips were pressed into a thin line. The beating had been rough. He began to clean gravel from lacerations across the small back. It looked like the work of a knife. The lad was having a tough time of things at the Wall. He was smaller than the other trainees, and the Roman officers liked the look of his fair hair and light skin. This wasn't the first time he had fled for sanctuary.
"You need to learn to fight," Dagonet said.
"I'm trying," said the boy.
Dagonet stood, finished, and put the healing tools back in their place among his tunics. He pulled one out and tossed it onto the table. "You may rest here for the night."
The boy pulled himself from the chair, struggled into the shirt, and then flung himself onto the long bed against the wall. His eyes were heavy with need for sleep.
Dagonet retrieved his sword, sat at the table, once more began to polish the steel with oiled moleskin. It was later; when he was slipping the weapon into the box that held his life, he heard a whisper:
"I got away. I didn't let them."
Dagonet closed his eyes for a moment and let the words unravel the hard knot that had formed in his gut. Gawain was a small boy, and while this wouldn't be the last time he would flee into Dagonet's room to escape the hands and lusts of men, it was enough this night that he was safe and unspoiled.
In the morning Dagonet would fetch Kai and ask him to teach the boy what he had taught Dagonet so many years previous. Gawain would grow stronger, taller, more ferocious, but that was still many years away. Here, in this room, snuggled deep beneath a heap of blankets, he was still a boy.
A future knight of Sarmatia.